“Lobbying” Is a Bad Word, Say the Government Relations Professionals Formerly Known as “Lobbyists”

The lobbyists have spoken, and they have said, “Um, actually, it’s ‘government relations professionals’ now?”

Continuing coverage of our favorite story of the year (nomenclature subcategory, Washington D.C. region), the American League of Lobbyists officially voted to change its name to the “Association of Government Relations Professionals,” due to image problems stemming from members’ own professional conduct. Meanwhile, just a few miles away in Bethesda, Maryland, a 14-year-old girl named Madison Scheitelstein told her parents that she now wishes to be called “Simone,” after Simone de Beauvoir. Which name will catch on the least: “Government Relations Professionals” or “Simone”? It remains to be seen.

Of the 1,200 members of the Association of Government Relations Professionals (aka A.G.R.P.; aka “A Group”), just 35 percent actually participated in the monthlong vote to rechristen. Of those 420 members, a full 80 percent, or 336 voted in favor of the change. In other words: out of 1,200 members, 336 thought “government relations professionals” sounded pretty good, while 864 members either did not care enough to vote or thought “government relations professionals” sounded silly.

A member of that latter category: government relations professional Barry Scheitelstein, Madison Scheitelstein’s father, whose sudden disinterest in the vote and focus on family-related stress could be traced back to the Saturday afternoon his daughter called an “important family meeting” on the subject of “the Hegelian Other and a new L.L. Bean backpack with a new monogram.”